1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular, to a computer implemented method for managing data in a file system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for tracking file contents.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data processing system generally keeps track of data by managing certain information about files known to the data processing system's operating system. A file is a data structure used for storing data. An operating system manages information about files using a file system. A file system is a data structure that maintains certain information about the files known to the operating system.
The information about a file that is maintained in a file system is called an inode. An inode is a data structure where the operating system stores certain attributes of a file. For example, a typical inode for a file stores information about a creation time, last modification time, size, and location of the file.
Contents of a file are the information stored in a file. For example, contents of a word processing file may be the information pertaining to a legal contract that is stored in that file. As another example, contents of a spreadsheet file may be the accounting data that is stored in the spreadsheet. As another example, contents of a text file may be the software code that is stored therein. Generally, any type of content can be stored in a suitable file, and an operating system can manage that file using the file's inode in the operating system's file system.
Presently, as applications and users manipulate a file, the inode information is updated as to the attributes of the file stored in the inode. For example, the time of last modification may be a file attribute, and the inode may be updated to reflect the time of the file manipulation. As another example, the size of the file may be another attribute of the file in the corresponding inode. If a changed size of the file results from the file manipulation, such as when a user edits a file, the new size of the file is recorded in the inode.